Scientist concerns about man-made (anthropogenic)
climate change through greenhouse gas pollution led to the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) setting up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988
(see: http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm
)

The IPCC
currently involves hundreds of scientists from around the world as authors,
contributors and reviewers and issues regular, scientific consensus-based
Assessment reports. .

The first
IPCC Assessment Report of 1990 led to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was opened for signature in the Rio de Janeiro Summit in 1992 (in force in 1994) that
provides the overall global policy framework for addressing the climate change.

The IPCC
Second Assessment Report of 1995 provided key assessments for the Kyoto Protocol
in 1997 (the major polluters, Bush-ite Australia and the US under both Clinton
and Bush, refused to sign but the new Rudd Labor Australian Government recently
signed the Kyoto Protocol as its first act in December
2007).

The Third
Assessment Report of 2001 as well as Special and Methodology Reports provided
further data for operations under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.

Unfortunately the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report was much
too conservative, this being largely date to a “cut-off date” for consensus
consideration of the latest data published in the scientific literature – the
2007 IPCC Report was accordingly several years out if date when it was
published.

The latest
scientific findings are that the IPCC 2007 Report has greatly UNDER-estimated
the rate of melting of Arctic Ice, including that of Greenland - water from
melted ice is lubricating and speeding up the movement of glaciers to the sea;
the so-called “albedo flip” involving converting light-reflecting, white ice to
light-absorbing, dark sea is dramatically speeding up loss of Arctic sea ice;
and the consequent increase in temperature in the Arctic provides a positive
feedback to increase sea ice and Greenland ice sheet melting (for analysis and
dramatic images of Arctic ice melting see: http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html
) .

The latest
scientific findings have dramatically superseded the 2007 IPCC Report warnings
of severe problems in the developing world already and dire global consequences
in future decades. The time frame has been dramatically reduced. Thus the top
US climate scientist Dr James Hansen
says that the “tipping point” for the melting of Arctic ice has ALREADY been
reached at 385 ppm atmospheric CO2 and it is apparent that the PRESENT
atmospheric CO2 is sufficient to completely remove summer-time Arctic sea ice
(some scientists say this may be completely gone by 2013). However most
alarming is the potential instability of large ice sheets, especially those of
West Antarctica and Greenland.

According
to Dr Hansen, in calling for an immediate moratorium on coal power, QUOTE:
“If disintegration of these ice sheets
passes their tipping points, dynamical collapse could proceed out of our
control. If it melts completely, West
Antarctica alone contains enough water to cause about 20 feet (6
meters) of sea-level rise. There are also tipping points in life systems. Today,
as global temperature increases at a rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36
degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, isotherms (a line of average temperature) are
moving poleward at a rate of about 50-60 kilometers (35 miles) per decade. In
response, some species are moving.” (see: http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/james-hansen/20080124.html
).

The
December 2007 Bali Conference sought to define “CO2 pollution reduction
targets” for the world but was effectively wrecked by the world’s worst per
capita greenhouse polluters, neo-Bush-ite Australia, Bush-ite Canada and Bush
US. However the science has – again – overtaken the variously dishonest, greedy,
corrupt, blinkered and cowardly politicians and the selfish vested interests
they serve against the interests of Humanity.

The Climate
Emergency means that the Bali-wrecking Australian, US and Canadian position of
“no 2020 targets” is an insult to Humanity demanding immediate retraction.
According to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen we need “negative CO2
emissions” NOW to reduce the earth’s atmospheric CO2 from a current
DANGEROUS 385 ppm to a sustainable level of about 300-350 ppm, as reported
recently by the BBC, QUOTE: “But Dr
Hansen stressed that the point of no return had not been reached - that
irreversible change had not taken place. He said that to get the Arctic ice to
recover would require a reduction in CO2 concentrations down to about 300 or 350
ppmv. He believed this was possible, and called for greater energy efficiency
and corrective pricing of carbon to allow cleaner technologies to compete and
take over from fossil fuels.” (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7143567.stm
).

ALREADY 16
million people die avoidably each year due to deprivation and deprivation
exacerbated disease However a combination of climate change, decreased
agricultural yields in the tropics, peak oil and the US biofuel perversion and
competition for global food by India and China have dramatically increased the
global grain prices that have DOUBLED in the last year. This is ALREADY
contributing to global avoidable mortality and raises the spectre of a massive,
Third World re-run NOW of the man-made, “market forces” Bengal famine of
1943-1945 in British-ruled India (6-7 million perished in Bengal and the
neighbouring states of Assam, Orissa and Bihar as the price of rice doubled and
then quadrupled under a merciless, racist British administration) (see “Body
Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/).

On Saturday
February 9, 2008 I attended a Climate Convergence Conference in Melbourne of
about 200 people from a variety of Climate Action Groups, This Climate
Conference involved a series of talks from activists, workshops, audience
participation (I wasn’t an official speaker but got a good response from
standing up and telling them all about the mounting Third World Global Avoidable
Mortality Holocaust due to rising food prices) and the launch of an excellent,
must-read, Friends of the Earth-sponsored book entitled “Climate Code Red – the
Case for a Sustainability Emergency” by David Spratt (from Carbon Equity) and
Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute). The essence of “Climate Code Red”
( it can be downloaded: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ) is
that the World is facing a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency
because we have passed crucial atmospheric CO2 “tipping points”, “Climate Code
red” further declares that, as demanded by Dr James Hansen, we need not “CO2
emissions reduction targets” or “zero CO2 emissions” but NEGATIVE CO2
EMISSIONS to return the Planet to a safe, sustainable 300-350 ppm
CO2.

At this
Melbourne Climate Convergence meeting various activist groups decided to form a
Climate Emergency Coalition to urgently spread the message and to lobby for a
Declaration of a State of Emergency in
Australia and the World to meet the
Sustainability Emergency. As Dr Hansen has said (see above), we urgently need a
LOWERING of atmospheric CO2 to about 300-350 ppm and a major step NOW must be an
immediate moratorium on coal power - we must keep fossil fuels in the ground to
save Humanity and the Biosphere.